Software, Startups and other Stuff

Friday, October 3, 2014

I can not image anyone would use a (free or not) online backup service without pre-file transfer encryption. It essentially means giving strangers (= the people who work at your backup provider) full access to all your files and photos. Not a good idea.

Now, but services with pre-file transfer encryption do not open-source their client software that does the encryption. So you have to take their word for it that they really do encrypt their software.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

All actions on the computer are stopped and any open documents and applications are put in memory. You can quickly resume normaloperation within a few seconds. Sleep mode is basically the same thing as “Standby” mode.

The goal of the Electrolysis project ("e10s" for short) is to run web content in a separate process from Firefox itself. It is an important project with potentially breaking changes for addon developers. I find the Mozilla Resources ...confusing. So here is my e10s cheat sheet.

e10s Release Date

E10S is scheduled for Firefox 36 - February 17, 2015.According to the Rapid Release Calendar Firefox 36 development begins Oct 13,2014. This is the version of the browser where Firefox's multi-process architecture will be moved from channel to channel (Nightly > Aurora > Beta > Stable) so that it is released to the stable channel of the browser on February 17, 2015. (Source =?, I read it on Ghacks)

e10s - How to test

You can test e10s in its own window, like Private Browsing, using the Nightly channel's "File > New e10s Window" menu item. (Source https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.platform/q0Ku_8j26Pc )

Then the Advanced User Accounts program will opens. You see a list of users.

Click (= mark) the user that you want to autologin.

Now, above this list of users, uncheck the box next to "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer".

Click the OK button at the bottom of the window.

When the Automatically sign in box appears, it has the user name prefilled. Just enter the password twice.Note: If you're using a Microsoft account, be sure to enter the entire email address that you use to sign in to Windows 8 with in the User name field. What defaults there might instead be the name associated with your account, not your actual user name.

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Ever lost luggage? Or your mobile phone? Then a Bluetooth location tracking device (aptly also called Lost-Item tracker) might be for you. Here is a list what is currently on the market:

Tile

StickNFind

BluTracker

PebbleBee

XY Find-It

Bringrr & BringTags

Find’Em Tracking

Linquet

PROTAG Duet

Lupo

iCookie

Click N'Dig

Wallet TrackR

The review is easy: All of them require a battery and cost between $30-$100. Unlike the WallStreet Journal I think this is ridiculous. It is the electronic version of Coal Rollers.

In contrast to Bluetooth, NFC (Near Field Communication) would be an ideal candidate for this application, as the tags require no battery. But physics still puts some hard limit on their range. More than 20cm are currently not possible.

As far as I am concerned, I came to the conclusion that this is
nothing for me. Way to much battery waste! So I decided I'd rather
continue use my build-in brain for this. It is not that bad after all.

But wait! There is one solution that does not require a battery. It is

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Outsourcing software development came a long way in the last decade. Before the turn of century this was a domain for larger companies that could afford a physical presence in the “source” countries. The emergence of outsourcing portals made it possible for small companies and individual developers (freelancers) to meet in a virtual and secure space. The pioneers in this market were Elance and Rent-a-Coder. For outsourcing software development Rent-a-Coder was by far the best choice, due do its reliable rating system for sellers and buyers and a good escrow and qualified arbitration service, which was specifically fine tuned for outsourcing software projects. Alas, they got acquired and absorbed by Freelancer.com in 2012. => So which portal is the best in 2014?